George Wiegers spent too much of his childhood watching depression ravage his mother. Recently, Wiegers made an extraordinary contribution to help ease the suffering from an illness that kills roughly 30,000 Americans a year and cripples millions of others. Wiegers donated $3 million to establish the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine Depression Center.

In honor of National Nurses Week, The American Nurses Association (ANA) and the Congressional Nursing Caucus sponsored a luncheon briefing for congressional health staff to highlight the importance of safe RN staffing and the solutions being developed and implemented in the states.

Congress has long been concerned about physician self-referral and the conflict of interest it creates between a patient’s health care needs and physicians’ financial interests. In fact, over the last year, the House of Representatives has twice passed a ban on physician self-referral to hospitals in which a physician has an ownership interest. Clearly Congress is openly and strongly committed to addressing this issue as quickly as possible.